An Ask Me Anything with STAT’s Nicholas St. Fleur

Recently, STAT launched a brand-new home for our subscribers to connect with each other and with their favorite STAT journalists. It’s called, appropriately, STAT+ Connect. There, you can find job postings; comment on STAT articles (since we have closed comments on article pages); discuss news events with other people who work in biotech, pharma, public health advocacy, PR, and more; read insights and extra material posted by STAT reporters and editors; and watch events, including live interviews and text-based Ask Me Anything chats.

Our AMA series launched Monday with an interview with Nicholas St. Fleur, a general assignment reporter, associate editorial director of events, and host of STAT’s health equity podcast, “Color Code.” In the chat, hosted by associate manager of community Rose Montera, St. Fleur discusses “Color Code” and the recent STAT Summit in Boston.

While STAT+ Connect is subscriber-only, we wanted to give everyone a taste of the exciting conversations happening there. Below, you can find a lightly edited transcript of the AMA.

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Nicholas St. Fleur: Hello! Excited for this STAT+ Connect AMA! I’m Nick St. Fleur. I’m a reporter and I help with the editorial side of our events, like our recent flagship Summit. I also host our health equity podcast “Color Code”!

Rick Berke: At some point can you share how you all settled on the name “Color Code”?

Nicholas St. Fleur: Lol Rick … if I remember correctly that decision came from you and Theresa Gaffney, our fabulous producer. At one point I had proposed “The Oximeter,” which plays off pulse oximeters, a health tech device that has gotten a lot of criticism for being racially biased in that it doesn’t work as well on darker skin tones, as researchers knew for 30 years or something.

We went with “Color Code” because it flowed better and was based off codes that you might see called in a hospital emergency. I remember getting a funny voicemail from you and Theresa saying that “Color Code” was the best name and we were going with it (even though there was a Canadian podcast called Colour Code already).

You can correct me if I’m wrong on some details! Ultimately I love the name. It works so well. I think the actual “Color Code” comes from a brainstorm we had over Slack. Some of the other names were “Color Coded.” And at one point “Medically Devalued.”

My colleague Usha Lee McFarling has done a ton of reporting on the issue of pulse oximeters for those who are curious.

Rick Berke: I love the name, Nick — I had totally forgotten about that phone message or my own involvement. I just know “Color Code” is a perfect name. And Oximeter felt a bit narrow.

Nicholas St. Fleur: Totally agreed, Rick. Haha, it was a funny voicemail.

Erika H.: … besides, who knows what oximeter even means?!!!

Julia Baker: Nick, what was your favorite session or topic covered during last week’s flagship STAT Summit?

Nicholas St. Fleur: Hey Julia! I loved them all. The Chat GPT vs. Doctor was really good and got the crowd super excited.  Another good session was this one on how to fix the crisis of Black deaths by again, the incredible Usha Lee McFarling. Here’s a great writeup by Anika Nayak.

Theresa Gaffney: I think the whole team had bounced around titles for the podcast, including “Color Code”, but hadn’t been able to completely settle on one.  And then one day in the office (in person!) executive producer Alissa Ambrose and I mentioned “Color Code” to Rick and we all liked it!

Nicholas St. Fleur: Agreed, Theresa! And the name works super well.

Sydney Klein: Nick, how long did it take you to find the right teal suit? That was amazing!

Nicholas St. Fleur: Baha, Sydney. Matt had posted a link to it on Slack during our breakthrough summit. And I snagged it once it went on sale. Everyone has asked me if I could expense the suit … thoughts Rick??

Rose Montera: I have a couple questions sent to me from last week … drumroll for the first … How has Season 2 of “Color Code” been going, and how has it been reporting on a place that you are from? Is it challenging?

Nicholas St. Fleur: Rose — it has been both incredibly challenging and rewarding. Our second season of “Color Code” is based on health inequities on Long Island, New York, where I live and was born and raised. It’s eye-opening to take a deep dive into the racial disparities here and the impact segregation has had on the lives of Long Islanders, myself included. But it has been heartening to see researchers and activists fighting against those inequities. Here’s a link to listen to this season.

Some of my favorite episodes include this look at the battle over the Brookhaven Landfill, which is located in North Bellport, just 20 minutes from my house. North Bellport, which is mostly Black and Brown, has the lowest life expectancy on LI. Robert Bullard, the father of environmental justice, called it “a textbook case of environmental racism.”

And this episode that looked at Long Island’s role in the Eugenics movement in the U.S. Our amazing intern Anil Oza took the lead on reporting and scripting this episode.

Rose Montera: Another Q I received: This season is so interesting and really different than last season. How did you know you wanted the focus to be Long Island?

Nicholas St. Fleur: Thanks Rose! We wanted to be a little more ambitious for Season 2, and we proposed doing some travel. At first we were thinking of looking at various places across the U.S. that had put out mandates stating that “racism is a public health emergency” following our nation’s quote-unquote racial reckoning in 2020 and the racial inequities we saw during the start of Covid.

While looking at the list of places we noticed that although New York state and NYC put out declarations, Long Island did not. We wanted to explore that more. My colleague Theresa Gaffney was the one who suggested really focusing in on Long Island for Season 2 since that’s where I’m from. At first I thought “who the heck wants to learn about Long Island?” I sort of thought that everyone knew it was a highly segregated suburb with a reputation for racism.

But as we got talking more and more about it and dove into the health inequities here, I and the rest of the team became more and more convinced that we should center the season on Long Island and use it as a model for health inequities seen in suburbs across the U.S. It was super helpful to have an excellent source in Martine Hackett from Hofstra who studies suburban health. She really made us feel like, “Whoa, this is underreported and Long Island is an ideal place to explore these inequities.” It was certainly a challenging season, but I’m just so lucky to have had such a strong and supportive team helping me every step along the way.

One of the things I didn’t realize going into it was just how much of myself and my family’s stories I’d be sharing this season. And how much what we’ve experienced is a result of these same inequities and insidious external forces like segregation, redlining, and racism. I come to terms with that in the outros in several episodes, especially in the finale. A lot of “wow this is heavy” moments for me this season!

Here’s one we did on the Black maternal and infant mortality crisis that features my cousin sharing a scary story about when she gave birth.

And here’s one of my favorite bonus episodes where we interviewed Ahna Red Fox, an Indigenous birthing worker from the Shinnecock Nation. This interview had me on the brink of tears, my goodness.

I was also so moved by Usha’s panel at the Summit on ending the crisis of Black death because what the panelists there said felt so affirming of all of the hard work that our “Color Code” team has reported on these past two seasons! Shout out to Alissa Ambrose, Hyacinth Empinado, Theresa Gaffney, Crystal Milner, Anil Oza, Tino Delamerced, and Katherine Gilyard!! And more!

And for those who might be new to “Color Code”, might I suggest my favorite episode, which was our Season 1 finale about the incredible and heartbreaking story of Vertus Hardiman.

Rose Montera: Last question: Where did you get that teal suit from?!

Nicholas St. Fleur: Ha, Express has been my go-to for vibrant suits. They fit me well, which is rare for off the racks!

If I could leave the chat with one last thing it would be an appreciation for the incredible events squad for the amazing, mic-dropping Summit we just put on. Shout out to Matt Herper, Britt Cipriano, Katherine MacPhail, Julia Baker, Caitlyn Clarke, and M.J. Rufo. We put together a tour de force of live journalism!

Thanks for joining!

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